The Uncultured Project

Yesterday I wrote a blog post about how sites like FirstGiving (and JustGiving, Facebook Causes, etc) are a great way for web savvy people to raise money for their favorite charities and non-profits. What most people might not know, is that such sites charge a service fee for every dollar donated. I’m not at all against people earning a living from innovative services – even if those services are meant for charitable uses.

Rather, I was hoping to start a discussion on what is a reasonable service fee for being a middle man. In my original article, I pointed out charities like Save the Children (a vast international charity with staff in thousands and offices around the world) takes only 8% for their overhead costs. Sites which act like a fundraising middle man, like FirstGiving for example, can sometimes charge service fees as high as 7.5%.

Many of you left great comments – both on the original blog post and in the version of this that is attached to my facebook profile. I’m honored that FirstGiving also decided to make an official comment, which I’m including here:

On January 20th, Henry Green was born to John & Sarah Green. Henry’s parents, the generous spirits that they are, asked their friends, family, and well-wishers to forgo the standard deluge of baby presents. Instead, they asked people to make a donation to help fight malaria through Malaria No More.

Malaria No More is one of the world’s leading charities fighting malaria in Africa. For exactly $10, they can protect an entire sleeping site from malaria for up to five years. As of the writing of this post, donations on behalf of Henry Green are now enough to protect over 250 sleeping sites (or an estimated 1,000 people).

That’s the good news. The bad news is that, of the 250 sleeping sites that Malaria No More could be helping with this donation, only 231 sleeping sites will be served. That’s an estimated 75 people (most likely much more) that won’t be (but should be) sleeping under a mosquito net.

Find out more after the jump…

Continue reading ‘The Rise of the Middle Man in Fundraising’

My work with this project has always been unpaid, unemployed, and (for the most part) unplanned. It’s probably now that I should talk about the fact that I’d like to one day earn a living doing this.

What do I mean by “earning a living”? Well, in the near term, I would like to be able to stop borrowing from friends and family to pay for things like meals, clothes, and even basics like getting a haircut. In the long term, I’d like to one day live that “American Dream” somewhere in suburbia.

At the same time, I want to be able to follow my passion. Helping others – especially in ways that connect people using technology – is a dream come true. Even though I believe we can end extreme poverty, I want to be able to continue to help others for the rest of my life.

The desire to earn a living from your passion maybe a no-brainer for many people reading this. But it deserves discussion because not everyone agrees that you should be able to earn a living if your passion is fighting poverty.

Continue reading ‘The Ethics of Earning a Living Fighting Poverty’

Based upon popular request, here are the revised (and simpler) voting instructions on how to get me to Davos to talk to world leaders about global poverty:

1. Go to YouTube.com/Davos
2. Click the button you see that says “Vote”.
3. Select my video called “A Message to Davos”.
4. When the video starts playing and you see me talking, click the green thumbs-up button underneath the video.
5. When the red thumbs down button turns grey, your vote has been recorded in the server.
6. You can repeat this every single day until the 15th.

You do not need to sign-up for anything or give your personal information to YouTube or the World Economic Forum.

Last year, I had expressed my disappointment with the Davos Debates. Not because I lost – but because of the manner in which the winner was selected. It seemed arbitrary, done behind closed doors, and completely undemocratic.

With this year’s winner being selected by popular vote, does this make this year’s Davos Debates nothing more than a mere popularity contest? Not at all – and I mean that even if I lose by a landslide.

The Davos Debates would have been a popularity contest if voting was the only method of selecting a candidate. In that case, it would make a lot of sense for any of those big YouTube mega-stars to submit a video (it could even be unrelated to Davos) and win by a landslide. Free trip to Davos!

But, what I like about this year is that it combines an evaluation of ideas and a way to prove a candidates campaign & rallying ability. The first round was all about ideas. The judges didn’t care if you have 1, 100, or 1 million YouTube subscribers.

How do I know this? Because the panel of judges were as independent as you can get. You have Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus, UN Peace Ambassador Paulo Coelho, and Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington.

Just to give you an idea of how impartial these panel of judges were: the head of a US-based charity that partners with the Professor Yunus’s Grameen Bank also submitted a video the Davos Debates. He was not selected as a finalist.

The second round, is all about a candidate’s ability to rally support for their cause. I like because it combines the best of last year’s contest (the search and selection of good ideas) with the idea of transparency and opening up the selection process to the people.

The way it is setup now, whoever gets to speak at Davos can say “I have an important message and I have a lot of people who want you to hear it”. It gives much needed weight that have been missing in previous iterations of the Davos Debates.

The only trouble now is getting there.

I was checking Dailybooth just now and found one of my friends Vondell had drawn this:

Shawn of the Uncultured Project is in the running for a slot at the 2010 World Economic Forum Meeting. If selected, he will have a chance speak to world leaders about the terrifically strong and largely untapped power the YouTube community has as a force of good.

Watch Shawn’s video and vote here:
http://www.youtube.com/Davos
Votes can be submitted every day until the 15th of January.

Tonight it doesn’t matter if I never ever get to Davos because this drawing is awesome

In January of 2007, I withdrew from grad school at the University of Notre Dame and began an unemployed, unplanned, and “uncultured” journey to help the poor.

Almost exactly three years later, that journey has brought me to within grasp of being able to talk to world leaders about global poverty at one of the planet’s most important conferences. I can get there – but only with your help.

Out of 75 applications from around the world (and many more that didn’t make the deadline), I was selected as one of five potential candidates to go to Davos. The winner, is determined by you – because it’s your vote that determines the winner.

I won’t lie. I’m up against some brilliant people. I wish we could all go – because I’d love to meet them all and brainstorm. At the same time, I know that it’s not like global poverty can be solved with a one week trip to Switzerland.

But this could be big. It’s the biggest thing to ever happen in my life and it could be the biggest thing for the future of this project. So, if you’d like to help, here’s how you can do so:

Things you will need [REVISED as of Jan 11th, 2010]:

1. A YouTube or Google account. Signing up for either is free. UPDATE: You don’t need to signup for anything to vote.
2. An internet connection good enough to use YouTube.
3. The ability to get online every 24 hours until January 15th.
4. If Possible: Friends & family who might be interested in voting as well.

Here’s how you can vote:

1. Go to http://YouTube.com/Davos

2. On the top half of the page, you will see something about the Davos Debates. It will have three tabs. Click on “vote”.

3. You will see five videos from the five candidates. Select my video called “A Message to Davos” – the thumbnail is my picture.

Videos Are Randomly Sorted and May Not Appeared In This Order

4. Once the video starts playing, click the green thumbs-up button. Wait a few seconds. Your vote has been placed.

When The Red Thumbs Down Turns Grey, Your Vote Has Been Cast.

5. You can vote again everyday.

It may seem that, with so many followers on Twitter and so many subscribers, this is all but guaranteed. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Without getting too academic, it boils down to public vs. private networks. My support network is very public. And, like every network, not everyone following me or subscribed will be reading my tweets, watching the videos, or reading this blog.

It’s very possible (and very likely) that many of these candidates have a group of friends, family, and colleagues who will be diligently voting. This could be close.

Every. Vote. Counts.

(Photo Seen in Featured Content is from Flickr)